Sharpnel-Proof Vest is displayed by Pfc. Ralph Barlow of Redondo Beach, California. While in front line action in Korea, Barlow was hit by shrapnel and knocked to ground, but received no serious injury. Vest stopped the metal fragment.

Bell X-5 is undergoing tests at Edwards Air Force Base in California. It is our first plane able to change the sweep of its wings in flight from the most forward position, top, to a fully sweptback position, bottom, in 30 seconds. It is jet propelled.

GREEK philosophers some 2,000 years ago are believed to be the first people to theorize that there were tiny and invisible particles in all matter. They named these particles atoms. To give you an idea of the smallness of these particles, it is said that if all the people of the world were as tiny as atoms, we would all be able to stand on the head of a pin! Since the atom seems to offer us a bright future, barring war, we should know something about it. This quiz is designed to test your atomic acumen. How do you rate?

NEWEST gadget in do-every-thing watches is the Chronomat, a combination wrist watch, stop watch, timer and circular slide rule. With Swiss-made precision, the Chronomat gives you the time of day, let’s you time anything from an auto race to film souping, and provides a calculator that adds, multiplies, subtracts, figures percentages, ratios and even rates of money exchange. It’s scarcely larger than a 50-cent piece but there’s hardly a mathematical problem this gizmo can’t handle—except how many Brigitte Bardots can stand on the head of a pin. A dream of a gift, the Chronomat is sold by the Wakmann Watch Co. of New York City. The price? Only (gulp!) $110.

Ike Likes Art
GENERAL Dwight Eisenhower has been a very busy man. First it was the Army, then Columbia University, then SHAPE and now the White House could be just around the corner. A man couldn’t do the jobs Ike has done without having some means of relaxation. With Ike it’s art. When the whistle blows at the end of a tough day, the General unlimbers his art tools and makes like Rembrandt. And he does pretty well, too. One of his early pieces, a painting of an Indian head, sold for $2,600. His oils stole the show at Columbia art exhibit.

Like to join the Brotherhood of Odd-Jobholders? Maybe some of these weird occupations aren’t difficult, but they’re certainly unique.

By E. I. Grinda

EVERY year during two weeks of October and November, men from all aver the United States gather at the most unusual school in the world—Santa Claus College. In Albion, N. Y., they study to be genial St. Nicks, sent there by department store managers who have found that their most acute problem near the end of each year is where to get a good reliable Santa Claus.

The Kahns took the old Swiss weather house, put it on a modern production line and now collect over % million dollars annually.

By Clive Howard

TO make a million dollars, or at least to put yourself far out along the road toward your first million, you don’t necessarily have to invent something that nobody ever thought of before. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to invent anything.

You can, like young Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kahn of Highland Park, Illinois, simply resurrect for the modern market an invention that is nearly as old as time.